Student Model Mandola for classroom?

Greetings! I've lurked quite a while on here, out of general interest, but this is the first occasion I've had to post.

I'm a middle school teacher, who's primarily a vocalist, but somehow found himself teaching guitar, then ukulele, then starting a weird fretted orchestra thing that incorporated ukulele, guitar, and bass reading parts as a traditional orchestra would. Then, we had a student who quit orchestra, but wanted to keep playing, and I had just purchased a couple of Savannah Mandolins for just such an occasion. Now, that "fretted orchestra" includes 2 mandolins, as well.

Which comes to my question for y'all. I know I have at least two viola players who were top players in the orchestra quitting and joining my chorus next year, though plan to keep playing their instruments. I LOVE introducing these instruments to the kids who don't know that there's very little they have to do to transition from one to the next, so I'd like to have a couple of Mandolas to hand to kids, as well.

The problem is, I was able to get pretty playable mandolins for around $100 a piece. I've not found anywhere that I could find a mandola of like quality for less than $500. Admittedly, I know next to nothing about them, though I do have friends who DO know quite a bit. Can anyone direct me to a company that makes quality, affordable mandolas, who might also give a discount to a school program? I'm just looking for perhaps two instruments. The two mandolin players I now have just borrowed my classroom instruments until they were sure they were interested, then bought their own, which I would anticipate in this case, as well.

Any assistance would be appreciated!

Regards,

Paul Marchese
Hadley Jr. High
Triple Fret Fretted Orchestra

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mandola-by-...frcectupt=true

I own one of these and it's a very good buy.

Yeah the Hora mandolas are probably going to be closest thing for that budget. I've owned a Hora octave mandolin and a Hora bouzouki, both are no frills but serviceable instruments made from all solid woods. They may need some set up work but that's generally to be expected anyway.

Agree, the Hora is probably a solid choice for young students. A step up from there might be the flat tenor mandola from Musikalia -- made in Sicily.

NFI, of course.

And BTW,,,welcome to the forum!